


Got a Pistol For a Mouth (My Own Mama Gave Me That)

by mjravensgate



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I intended this to be pure fluff, M/M, Somehow it became sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjravensgate/pseuds/mjravensgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a reason Stiles is the way he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got a Pistol For a Mouth (My Own Mama Gave Me That)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I wanted this to be all cute and sweet and it came out all not, but I think it is still good this way. Sooo, yes. Enjoy!  
> I own nothing. The title is from a song by Gin Wigmore and I do not own that, either.

When Stiles thinks about him mom – which is much more often than he lets on, which is all the time, which is anytime he lets his mind wander, which is probably at least once an hour – the thing he remembers first and most vividly is her voice. She had a lovely voice and it sang Stiles to sleep every night for eleven years, but that isn’t what he remembers about it. He remembers how she talked, the things she said. He remembers the whip quick wit, the cutting sarcasm, the way she could put him or his dad in place with a few short words. She was mouthy and loud and she spoke her mind always and often. She was brash and bold and everyone loved her, but no one more than her husband and her son.

Stiles knows she passed some of that down to him, can see it in the immense sadness his father gets in his eyes sometimes when Stiles is being particularly talkative or smart-assed. He knows his mother is the reason he talks like he does and as much as he does. He knows she is the reason for his sharp tongue and his masterful wielding of sarcasm. He remembers them squaring off when one of them was angry and he remembers them joking together, always rapid fire quips and clever turns of phrase, the two of them always evenly matched in their verbal genius.

He is well aware that his rambling can be obnoxious and he can see how much Derek wants to kill him sometimes when he goes off on his tangents. He notices when he shoots off some ingenious one-liner and his father gets this look in his eyes like he’s not seeing Stiles – Stiles knows that in these moments, his father is seeing his mother – before he shuts his eyes like it hurts to look and he just nods at whatever it is that Stiles has said. He realizes that his babbling and his particular, inherited brand of humor is not to most people’s tastes. He knows because of these things he is not particularly attractive as a friend or boyfriend.

Despite all of that, though, he makes absolutely zero effort to change his behavior, despite the trouble mouthing off has gotten him in time and time again. He never tries to control his rambling, he lets his sarcasm have free reign, he makes stupid jokes whenever they come to him. Scott looks at him sometimes like he isn’t sure why he puts up with him. Derek slams him into walls and growls at him. He breaks his father’s heart. Lydia has found him obnoxious for years and he knows it. But none of that matters to him more than the way he talks matters to him. He speaks the way he does because his mother spoke the way he does. Stiles learned his chatty ways from his mom. Stiles loves his chatty ways because he got them from his mom, loves them more than almost anything because they are so completely _her_ , he sees that as clearly as his father does. They are the only tangible thing he has left of her.

He mouths off at a bad moment and he remembers the soft way his mom smiled at him when she got him up for school in the mornings. He calls someone out on their shit and he remembers his mom holding him tight against her when he cried. He talks and talks and talks and can’t stop himself and he remembers sleeping between her and his dad on the nights he had nightmares. He says something without thinking and he remembers the two of them dancing in the kitchen, singing along to the radio at the tops of their lungs as they cooked side by side from the time Stiles could barely walk all the way up until the time his mother could barely walk. He antagonizes an already pissed off Derek and he remembers being squeezed into the hospital bed next to her, watching horrible soap operas on the TV mounted to the wall.

If he remains silent, all he remembers is listening to her heart rate monitor stop beeping steadily, remembers how the beeping slowed, and he remembers the horrible, endless sound it made when the beeping finally stopped. If he holds his tongue, all he remembers is the way his father’s shoulders shook with silent sobs inside his black suit as they watched her coffin get lowered into the ground. If he keeps his thoughts to himself, all he remembers is that his mother isn’t waiting at home for him anymore because she’s buried six feet under the ground on the other side of town.

Once, when Stiles was in the middle of one of his world-class rants, Derek interrupted him to ask, genuinely curious, “Stiles, why do you talk so much? You talk more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

He had only smiled at Derek and shrugged. “Just because,” he had lied.

Derek had lifted an eyebrow, knowing Stiles had lied to him, but then he had shrugged and let it go.

Stiles had been beyond grateful for that. He was sure Derek would understand if he told him, given Derek’s past, and part of Stiles wanted badly to tell him. But he hadn’t, because the answer to that question was, for now, between him and his mother, though he surprised himself by realizing that he wanted to tell Derek all the things he had loved about his mom because he knew  Derek would listen and understand. He had a momentary premonition of someday telling Derek all those things and more and of telling him exactly why he talked so much. Someday, maybe, but not then, so he had shrugged at Derek, communicating with the gesture that there was a reason, but it wasn’t Derek’s to know. At least, not yet.

There is a reason Stiles won’t shut up when someone tells him to, even if it’s his teacher or Derek with his fangs bared. There is a reason he ignores it when the situation calls for silence. There is a reason that when he takes his Adderall he ends up talking for countless minutes straight. There is a reason he talks as much and as often as possible and it’s because when Stiles talks, he does it with his mother’s voice.


End file.
